• Issue
  • May 01, 2023

Surface Matters: Yun Hyong-Keun’s Years In Paris

YUN HYONG-KEUN, Burnt Umber & Ultramarine, 1981, oil on hanji, 64

For a short few weeks in early 2023, one could discover the atemporal beauty of the art of Yun Hyong-Keun at David Zwirner’s Parisian space. The selection of works for this exhibition included Yun’s paintings on canvas as well as works on hanji—traditional Korean mulberry paper— realized in the immediate years surrounding the artist’s stay in Paris from 1980 to 1982. Shown together, these two important bodies of work shed light on Yun’s positioning vis-à-vis his singular stance within Dansaekhwa, the modernist painting movement that dominated the discourse in Korean art of the 1970s and 1980s.